Disk drives operate by reading and/or writing data to sections of one or more spinning disks housed within the disk drive. One or more transducers can be moved along each spinning disk to allow the one or more transducers to interface with different areas of the disks in a rapid manner. The one or more transducers are held over the disk by a head suspension assembly. The one or more transducers typically write to, and read from, the disk media magnetically. The one or more transducers are supported on the head suspension by a slider. The proximity of the slider to the surface of the disk, and the movement of air generated by the spinning of the disk, causes the slider to “fly” over the disk surface on an air bearing. The slider is suspended by a spring mechanism and is gimbaled to pitch and roll as needed while flying over the surface of the disk.
There is a constant need in the art to increase the quantity of data that can be stored in a disk drive. However, increasing the density of stored data further limits the disk area dedicated to storing each bit, which eventually meets the superparamagnetic limit of the disk media. One emerging technology for increasing the performance of disk drives is energy-assisted magnetic recording (EAMR). EAMR uses various types of energy to selectively change the coercivity of the disk media. Various types of EAMR exist, such as heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) and microwave assisted magnetic recording (MAMR). HAMR technology, for example, allows the use of disk media that has higher magnetic stability and is therefore less likely to be corrupted at normal temperatures. The higher magnetic stability allows data to be dedicated to smaller cells on the disk media to increase the storage density. A focused light, such as a laser, near-field optical source, or other rapid heating source, is used to selectively heat small sections of the surface of the disk to temporarily lower the coercivity of the disk media just prior to writing. After being written to, the small portions of the disk cool to a more magnetically stable state.
HAMR technology, however, requires a laser or other rapid heating component to be deployed in proximity to the read/write transducer on the head suspension. Other types of EAMR likewise require an element that selectively changes the coercivity of the disk media to be mounted on the head suspension. This places further demands on the high performance components of the head suspension. Various embodiments of the present disclosure concern head suspension configurations that can accommodate EAMR and/or other components on a head suspension.